StoriePro — Monthly Performance Report

Executive Summary

July delivered 29 leads at a $38.45 CPL on $1,114.97 in spend — slightly above June's $34.26 CPL, which is what prompted the month's two structural moves. First, a new wave of dark-editorial creative went live on Jul 14, extending the visual direction of the account's proven winner. Second, the account migrated from the lifetime-budget campaign structure to a new daily-budget campaign ($33/day) on Jul 19 — the old campaign ran through its scheduled Jul 31 end date, so the hand-off happened with zero downtime and no learning-phase cost spike: the new campaign's CPL landed at $38.15, at parity with the old campaign's $38.63 in the same month. The Dark Coffee Theme creative remained the workhorse, producing 23 of 29 leads at a $32.48 CPL. Tracking was clean all month — no pixel gaps.

Leads

vs 24 in June (+21%). Clean tracking all month — no adjustments needed.

$38.45

CPL

vs $34.26 in June (+12%). The drift upward is what triggered July's creative + structure changes.

$1,114.97

Total Spend

Last month on the 30-day-cycle structure. From August, daily budget makes calendar spend predictable (~$1,023/mo).

19,532

Impressions

+41% vs June (13,878), on +36% spend.

436

Link Clicks

2.23% link CTR (vs 2.13% in June). 370 landing page views — 84.9% LPV rate, funnel still tight.

2.36 / 1.97

Frequency (Old / New Campaign)

Old campaign at 2.36 after months on the same audiences; the new campaign reset to 1.97. Both below the 3.0 fatigue threshold.

Strategic Context — Why the Campaign Was Rebuilt

Two problems, one rebuild. CPL had been drifting up since June ($34.26 → $38+), and the account was still running on the lifetime-budget structure: $1K added per 30-day cycle, with ad-set timelines manually adjusted to control pacing. That structure did its job, but the cycles never lined up with calendar months (April showed $1,254 in calendar spend against a $1K period budget for exactly this reason) and pacing control required repeated timeline edits. With the old campaign's schedule ending Jul 31, we used the deadline to rebuild rather than extend: a new campaign on a straight $33/day daily budget, same two proven audiences, seeded with the six strongest ads — the proven winners plus the new dark-editorial line. The result is steady, hands-off pacing (~$1,023/month), budget periods that match calendar months, and a fresh auction reset (frequency 1.97 vs the old campaign's 2.36). The two campaigns ran in parallel Jul 19–31 so delivery never dropped: account-level spend held at ~$35/day through the entire transition.

Weekly Trend

Week	Spend	Impressions	Link Clicks	Leads	CPL
Jul 1 – 5 (5d)	$176.37	2,566	51	2	$88.18
Jul 6 – 12	$262.20	4,463	93	10	$26.22
Jul 13 – 19 (creative launch + campaign switch)	$239.53	4,180	113	6	$39.92
Jul 20 – 26 (both campaigns live)	$268.78	5,226	114	8	$33.60
Jul 27 – 31 (5d, old campaign wind-down)	$168.09	3,097	65	3	$56.03

The month opened soft — Jul 1–4 produced zero leads — then recovered sharply in week two (10 leads at $26.22). The transition weeks held steady: launching new creative and standing up a new campaign mid-month is normally where CPL blows out, and it didn't — $39.92 and $33.60 through the switch. The final stretch softened as the old campaign spent down its remaining budget.

Changes Made This Month

Jul 14 — New dark-editorial creative wave. Three new ads launched into the existing campaign: arch-interior-dark (Architects), designer-interior-dark (Designers), and Emily Kate Testimonial (Designers). The set extends the visual direction of the account's proven winner — dark, photographic, editorial — rather than the white-mockup style that had fatigued. The testimonial ad uses a real client quote from Emily Kates Design.
Jul 17 — New campaign built. "PVM | Lead Gen | CBO Daily | 2026-07" created on a $33/day daily budget with CBO — replacing the lifetime-budget / 30-day-cycle structure the account had run on since late 2025.
Jul 19 — New campaign live with the six strongest ads. Same two audiences carried over (Architects 2% LAL + Interest; Interior Designers 1% LAL + Interest). Ad lineup: Dark Coffee Theme (the winner), arch-interior-dark, designer-interior-dark, Designers Dark Theme, Emily Kate Testimonial, and Mock up. Everything else stayed behind in the old campaign.
Jul 19 – 31 — Parallel run. Old and new campaigns ran side by side so lead flow never paused while the new campaign exited learning. Account-level daily spend stayed in the normal $30–40 band throughout.
Jul 31 — Old campaign completed. "PVM | Lead Gen | 2025-2026 | CBO" reached its scheduled end date and stopped. From Aug 1 the account runs entirely on the new daily-budget campaign.
Throughout July — Next creative wave produced. A full set of finished ads is built and ready for August testing: the four dark-editorial concepts in three formats each (square, portrait, and 9:16 Stories/Reels — a placement the account hasn't used), plus device-mockup ads showing real client websites (actual captures of emilykatesdesign.com composited onto the devices — no invented UI), with approved copy variants written for every concept.

What We Expected vs What We Saw

Action	Expected	Actual	Assessment
Campaign migration to daily budget	Some learning-phase cost while the new campaign calibrates; no delivery gap	New campaign CPL landed at $38.15 vs the old campaign's $38.63 — parity from day one. No delivery gap; daily spend steady through the switch.	Exceeded
New dark-editorial creatives	Extend the winning visual direction; find a second workhorse to relieve Dark Coffee Theme	arch-interior-dark posted the strongest CTR of any ad with meaningful spend (3.04%) but a $57.03 CPL on 2 leads — promising signal, not yet proven. The testimonial pulled 2 leads at $44.29 in the new campaign. No second workhorse confirmed yet.	In progress
CPL direction	Arrest the drift up from June's $34.26	July closed at $38.45 (+12% vs June). The structural fixes landed mid-month, so August is the first clean test of whether they bend the curve back.	Watch

Campaign Performance

Campaign	Status	Spend	Impressions	Link Clicks	Leads	CPL
PVM \| Lead Gen \| 2025-2026 \| CBO	Completed Jul 31	$695.27	11,524	267	18	$38.63
PVM \| Lead Gen \| CBO Daily \| 2026-07 New	Active	$419.70	8,008	169	11	$38.15

The new campaign matched the old one's CPL in its first 13 days — including its learning phase — which is the strongest possible signal for the migration. It also reached 4,058 fresh users at a 1.97 frequency vs the old campaign's 2.36, buying back headroom against creative fatigue.

Ad-Level Performance

Ad Name	Ad Set	Spend	Impressions	Link CTR	Leads	CPL
Architects \| Dark Coffee Theme Top Performer Combined across both campaigns	Architects 2% LAL	$747.09	13,881	2.18%	23	$32.48
Architects \| arch-interior-dark New Jul 14 Combined across both campaigns	Architects 2% LAL	$114.05	1,938	3.04%	2	$57.03
Leads \| Emily Kate Testimonial New Jul 14 Combined across both campaigns	Interior Designers 1% LAL	$100.47	1,519	2.37%	2	$50.24
Leads \| Mock up Combined across both campaigns	Interior Designers 1% LAL	$66.83	926	1.94%	1	$66.83
Architects \| Mock up	Architects 2% LAL	$54.64	808	1.49%	0	—
Designers \| Dark Theme	Interior Designers 1% LAL	$9.58	157	2.55%	1	$9.58
10 other ads with minimal spend (mostly old-campaign stragglers)		$22.31	303	—	0	—

Dark Coffee Theme carried the month: 79% of leads at a CPL better than the account average. That's both the good news and the risk — the account is one fatigued creative away from a problem, which is exactly why the new dark-editorial line exists. Of the new ads, arch-interior-dark has the clearest early signal (best CTR of any meaningful spender at 3.04% combined); its CPL needs more volume before judging. The Mock up creatives continue to underperform — carried into the new campaign as a control, but first in line to be replaced by the August wave.

Audience Insights

Audience	Spend	Impressions	Link CTR	Leads	CPL
Architects \| 2% LAL + Interest Ages 28–54, all genders, US	$925.15	16,775	2.24%	25	$37.01
Interior Designers \| 1% LAL + Interest Ages 25–54, female only, US	$189.82	2,757	2.21%	4	$47.46

Key finding: Budget allocation flipped again — Architects took 83% of July spend (vs 36% in April), because CBO followed the Dark Coffee Theme creative, which lives in the Architects ad set. CTRs are identical across the two audiences (2.24% vs 2.21%); the CPL gap ($37.01 vs $47.46) is really a creative-match gap, not an audience-quality gap. The Designers ad set doesn't have its own Dark Coffee Theme equivalent yet — the August creative wave (designer-interior-dark, testimonial, device mockups) is aimed squarely at that hole.

Recommendations for August

Deploy the ready creative wave — priority on the Designers ad set. The finished set (four dark-editorial concepts × three formats, device-mockup ads with real client sites, approved copy) is produced and waiting. The Designers audience is the clear gap: identical CTR to Architects but no proven creative of its own. The device-mockup testimonial ad — Emily Kates' real site on the screens, her real quote above — is the strongest candidate.
Open the Stories/Reels placement. The 9:16 versions are built and safe-zone compliant. The account has never run dedicated Story placements — incremental reach at typically cheaper CPMs, and a clean test now that the campaign structure is simple.
Protect against Dark Coffee Theme fatigue before it happens. It has carried the account since April and produced 79% of July's leads. Frequency is fine post-reset (1.97), but the concentration is the account's biggest single risk. Goal for August: at least one new creative proving out at a sub-$40 CPL with meaningful volume.
Give arch-interior-dark room to prove its CTR converts. Best click-through of any meaningful spender (3.04%) but only 2 leads so far. Let it run; judge at ~$150–200 total spend.
Retire the Mock up creatives. Third straight month of below-average CTR and worst-in-account CPLs. Replace their slots with the new wave rather than letting CBO keep feeding them.
Expect clean, boring budget numbers from now on. August is the first full month on the daily-budget structure: ~$1,023 calendar spend at $33/day, no cycle overlap, no timeline management. CPL target: back to the low-$30s.

Budget Summary

Last month of cycle-vs-calendar mismatch. July calendar spend was $1,114.97 — above the $1K target for the same structural reason as April: the old campaign's 30-day lifetime-budget cycles didn't align with calendar months, and July carried the final cycle's spend-down alongside the new campaign's first 13 days. This is the problem the migration eliminates. From Aug 1 the account runs on a single $33/day budget: ~$1,023 per 31-day month, matched to the calendar, no manual pacing.

$1,114.97

Total Spend (July)

$695.27 old campaign (final cycle spend-down) + $419.70 new campaign (Jul 19–31)

$35.97

Daily Average

Steady $30–40/day all month — no spikes, including through the campaign transition

$33/day

New Budget Structure

Daily CBO budget from Jul 19. Replaces the $1K-per-30-day-cycle lifetime structure. ~$1,023/calendar month going forward.